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Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

Hey, I feel that we should commend Dr. Lu and his collaborators for
stepping up their game--this time they at least took the time to monitor
varroa and to treat against nosema.

Still hard to imagine that anyone actually reviewed this paper. For
example, their total description of the alcohol wash was "The Varroa mite
counts were assessed twice using the common alcohol wash method." Only
later do we learn that they washed only 150 bees per sample, with no
explanation of from where the bees were collected in the hive (from a brood
frame?). Nor did they specify the concentration of the syrup solutions.
Such omissions are normally caught by at least one reviewer.

Nonetheless, their results are of interest. As Jim calculated, the dosage
that they use in the fed syrup, 135 ppb (w:v, or slightly less on a w
basis), is far above the level that Bayer recently found to cause colony
morbidity (50 ppb, as reported by Bayer's Dr. David Fischer at a recent bee
conference). So as Johnathan points out, the only surprising thing is that
the Lu team did not notice such summer morbidity in their trial.

Of interest were the mite counts in mid August, which were 7-8 per 100
bees, a level at which viruses start to go epidemic. The treatment with
formic dropped the mite counts, which then raises the question as to
whether the apparent adverse effect of the neonics on the colonies was due
to suppression of the bee antiviral mechanisms.

What would have been of interest is if the researchers had measured the
residue levels in the honey of the overwintering colonies. If they had, we
might have learned the mechanism by which summer exposure to high
concentrations of neonicotinoids might affect the spring buildup of
colonies.

mike syracuse ny
I went to bed mean, and woke up meaner. Marshal Dillon

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

This is an example of the shabbiest sort of work. These researchers take their theory: neonics cause CCD, and try to make a case by poisoning bee hives. The symptoms they produce are consistent with bee poisoning, but not actual CCD. In the field, CCD appears to be contagious, like a virus.

Meanwhile, researchers in Israel studied actual collapsing colonies in the field and found very high levels of IAPV. This virus was also consistently found in colonies in the USA that collapsed with CCD symptoms.

Dr. Lu et al are trying to make a case by poisoning bees. There are innumerable ways to poison bees, but that does not indicate that these are the causes CCD. The continual reference to CCD simply shows that Dr. Lu is completely out of touch with the real beekeeping world.

This is a significant fact that they fail to note: There have been hardly any verifiable cases of CCD in the past few years, CCD has never been widespread, and the number of bee colonies in the US is actually rising.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

I'm curious now. In poking around it seems that the "Bulletin of Insectology" may not be as strict in their standards as other scientific journals. However, Harvard is a pretty solid institution.

Isn't there a review process within the institution that one is working for that gives some sort of imprimatur before their staff/faculty/students publish something that's linked with said institution?

Nobody ruins my day without my permission, and I refuse to grant it...

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

This is not Harvard, we are talking about.

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) began as the Harvard-MIT School of Health Officers, founded in 1913 as the first professional training program of public health in America. The partnership offered courses in preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School, sanitary engineering at Harvard University and allied subjects at MIT. In 1946, no longer affiliated with the medical school, HSPH became an independent, degree-granting body.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

Since Alex Lu's latest experiments included both imidacloprid and clothiadinin, and colonies fed lethal doses didn't succumb until they were overwintering, the inference is that the 30% overwintering losses here in the U.S. are a result of the use of those pesticides.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

WLC reaching that conclusion is a huge leap.

Anyone of us could repeat this experiment at home using any random poison and get similar results. The bees store the poisoned syrup for later consumption and die once they have consumed enough. To expect any different result would be unrealistic and I think the only way someone could design and run such an experiment and then reach the conclusions he reached is if he has already decided neonicitinoids cause CCD and sets out to try to prove that.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

The word around here is that Lu, who knows nothing about bees, is really interested in neonics and humans and is using the bees to start his proof that neonics are bad for humans. I'm about 10 miles from one of the yards and have been in it before. That yard also had an AFB problem last summer.

Epidemiologist
Utah Department of Health
October 2011 – December 2011 (3 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
National Toxic Substance Incidents Program (NTSIP) Coordinator
• Coordinated community outreach program
• Data management/analysis using SAS and ArcGIS

Intern
Utah Department of Health
July 2011 – October 2011 (4 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
Tobacco Prevention and Control Program
• Assist program epidemiologists with data collection, analysis, report preparation, data dissemination, and prepare required documents for legislative reports and documents. Data analysis using SPSS and SAS.

Intern
Utah Department of Health
April 2011 – June 2011 (3 months)Greater Salt Lake City Area
Cancer Control Program
• Collaborated with program members and developed and created a needs assessment survey to determine the unmet needs of cancer survivors
• Disseminated and collected surveys for the annual Utah Cancer Action Network (UCAN) Cancer Survivorship Conference

Intern
World Health Organization
May 2010 – July 2010 (3 months)Geneva Area, Switzerland
Unit of Surveillance and Population-based Prevention, Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health Cluster
• Collected and entered epidemiological data from country reports and literature
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• Created departmental reports and factsheets for over 40 countries

Research Assistant
Brigham Young University
January 2010 – April 2010 (4 months)Provo, Utah Area
Epidemiological study of motor vehicle crashes and safety
• Coauthored “Epidemiology of Motor Vehicle Crashes in Utah” in the Journal of Traffic Injury Prevention with Drs. Ray Merrill and Steve Thygerson

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

Originally Posted by nschomer

I brood wax is a bioaccumulator of insecticides, perhaps the acute exposure pretty much built up brood wax levels to the same levels that chronic exposure of lower doses might achieve over time. More experiments would need to be done to establish or rule out this possibility, but I don't think that the experiment as run was lacking merit.

Bioaccumulation occurs in living organisms not inanimate objects such as brood wax. Also, bees really don’t live long enough to bioaccumulate anything approaching chronic exposure.

Originally Posted by deknow

The text is unclear when it talks about testing the sucrose syrup and hfcs.... the text states that they found "non-detectable residues" of neonics in the plain feed. If this were the case, there would be big problems with the experiment. I'm quite sure he means "no detectable"...I would tend to think of this as a typo/wordo (Lu's English is quite good, but not quite a native speaker), except that implying that neonic residues are in everyone's feed seems to be what he claimed in the last study and part of his thesis that ccd is simply neonic poisoning.

Lab results are flagged ND (not detected above method detection limits) if the results are below the detection range of the instrument or method. When reporting the lab results, the terms not detected, non-detect, non-detectable tend to be used interchangeably. "No dectable levels" is usually not used because it is unclear.

Every lab method has detection limits that are associated with the process. Problems arise when a lab reports a high detection level for an analyte such as ND (500 µg/kg). This means the compound was not found above 500 µg/kg, but the actual level could be 499 µg/kg. This is bad if you are talking about potential exposures at the 10 µ/kg level. You cant tell without looking at the actual lab reports.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

a) Feeding honey bees levels of neonicotinoids greater than 10 times what they would normally encounter is more than unrealistic – it is deceptive and represents
a disservice to genuine scientific investigation related to honey bee health.

b) Given the artificially high levels tested over 13 consecutive weeks, the colony failure rates observed are completely expected.

c) Unfortunately, this latest study conducted by Dr. Lu repeats the fundamental flaws seen in his previous research and provides no meaningful information regarding honey bee risk assessment.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

@Nabber
"Bioaccumulation occurs in living organisms not inanimate objects such as brood wax."

Seeing brood wax as a simple inanimate object is a rather simplistic way of looking at it. Many people consider a single beehive to act similarly to a single organism, with the brood wax thus being analogous to the ovaries of the superorganism. In any case, it's not like I plucked this outta my backside:

A more useful definition of bioaccumulation puts it simply as when the rate of pesticide intake is greater than the sum total of pesticide expulsion and/or remediation (rendering it non-toxic). This certainly happens in the brood wax, as subsequent generations of brood are fed from contaminated stores, or additional contaminants are brought in. And the paper above illustrates that this can certainly have a net negative effect on colony health.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

Neonicotinoids in bees: a review on concentrations, side-effects and risk assessment

From the conclusions:
Via the plant sap transport neonicotinoids are translocated to different plant parts. In general, the few reported residue levels of neonicotinoids in nectar (average of 2 μg kg−1) and pollen (average of 3 μg kg−1) were below the acute and chronic toxicity levels; however, there is a lack of reliable data as analyses are performed near the detection limit. Similarly, also the levels in bee-collected pollen, in bees and bee products were low.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

> the brood wax thus being analogous to the ovaries of the superorganism.

Ovaries may be a bit of a stretch, but it is certainly correct to regard the colony as an organism, and the brood combs as an organ of that entity. And to refer to substances in the comb as "bio-accumulation." On the other hand, many beneficial substances also bio-accumulate, such as natural antibiotics, microorganisms, pheromones, and various enzymes produced by the bees.

Re: Newly published Harvard study on neonics

In the new study, researchers didn't waste time with a low initial dose. They began right away with syrup containing 136 micrograms of insect-killer per liter. Eventually, six of the 12 colonies fed the spiked syrup failed. Calling the researchers' credibility into further question, the second study, like the first, ascribes colony failure to colony collapse disorder, a malady with characteristics not evident in either trial.